The woman was jailed at Norwich Crown Court for blackmail.

A Norwich woman has been jailed for blackmailing a man into paying her £1,000 by threatening to tell his wife that he had sent her explicit text messages and photographs of himself, a court heard.

A Norwich woman has been jailed for blackmailing a man into paying her £1,000 by threatening to tell his wife that he had sent her explicit text messages and photographs of himself, a court heard.

Melanie Seaman, 45, had been exchanging text messages with the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and in April this year he sent photos of himself to her phone and they met for sex.

Ben Brighouse, prosecuting at Norwich Crown Court, said Seaman was annoyed when he failed to contact her and despite his apologising she sent him a text message asking for £150 - or else he would lose everything as she would tell his wife.

Mr Brighouse said the victim offered her the cash but she then said it was not enough and demanded £300, to which he agreed.

Mr Brighouse said there were further demands for cash, including money to delete the sexual photos, and in total the blackmail victim handed over £1,000.

The court heard that in a statement the victim said the blackmail had made him feel “anxious and upset.”

However the victim’s wife found some of the explicit text messages on his phone and he then revealed he was being blackmailed and police were contacted about the matter.

Seaman, of Goodhale Road, Bowthorpe, admitted blackmail and was jailed for 18 months,

She was also ordered to pay the victim £728 in compensation or face a further 28 days in jail.

Sentencing her, Recorder Karim Khalil told Seaman that he accepted she had not set out to blackmail the victim from the start but said: “You would have known the pain you were causing.”

He said that if it had stopped after the first demand he might have been able to suspend her sentence but he added: “Unhappily it did not. You had messages on your phone which were of an explicit nature, including images, and you asked for a price to delete these images. You must have realised he would have done anything to avoid his wife knowing or seeing them.”

He added that the court had to send out a message that this type behaviour would not be tolerated.

Michael Clare, for Seaman, said: “She has a clear understanding of how serious the offence is and the harm it has done.”

He said it was not planned in the beginning but was a result of Seaman feeling hurt and upset at her treatment. “She felt she had been wronged.”

He added: “This was ill thought out and stupid and it overtook her in a way she had not envisaged at the beginning because of the hurt she was feeling.”

He said the actions were totally out of character as was shown by the character references which had been handed to the court.

He said the mother of four did volunteer work in a charity shop and had already learned her lesson.